Cristian Soratos, The Unlikely NCAA Mile Leader

Cristian Soratos of Montana State University wasn’t surprised when ran a 3:55.27 mile at the University of Washington on Feb. 14, his first time under 4:00.

“I knew that I was in shape for it,” he says. “I felt I was already a sub-4:00 miler.”

He was, at least, in the eyes of the NCAA descending order list. Soratos, a 22-year-old senior, ran 4:05.18 on Jan. 16 at MSU’s flat, 200-meter track in Bozeman, which converted to a 3:56.87 for NCAA qualifying purposes, thanks to the race being run at altitude (4,926 feet) and on a flat track.

Some fans of the sport were skeptical, however. After that race, “people were really raising their eyebrows at Cristian’s converted time, which is fine,” MSU coach Lyle Weese says. “People can have their opinions.”

“My teammates would show me on Twitter or on running forums, stuff saying oh he’s not legit, he can’t do it, he’s not a true sub-4:00 miler,” Soratos says. “It kind of got me fired up and ready to show everyone that I am a true sub-4 miler.”

Now that he has officially broken 4:00, Soratos has a chance to show what kind of racer he is: The NCAA national championships are March 13 and 14 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Soratos has the nation’s best mile time. Consistency—and sour candy—helped Soratos take the collegiate ranks by storm.

His training and racing weren’t always so steady. As a junior at Salinas (California) High School, Soratos was only a “5-foot nothing, 100 pound” 4:49 miler.

“I wasn’t really training year round” in high school, Soratos says. “I was a really late bloomer.”

A major growth spurt before his senior year unlocked some natural talent. Soratos’ mile best dropped to 4:23. He decided to continue running in his hometown at Hartnell Community College after receiving little interest from larger schools.

“I committed to training the entire year and started having these massive improvements,” he says. “A lot of universities started looking at me.”

As a sophomore at Hartnell in 2012, Soratos ran 3:47 for 1500m. That’s when he started thinking about breaking 4:00. The next spring he transferred to MSU.

“I was like, Wow, I think I can take this thing to the next level,’” he says. At MSU, that next level became a reality—especially under Weese, a former MSU standout himself.

Weese, who previously coached at Hartnell, was thrilled that he was able to lure the California kid to Montana.

Soratos made an immediate impact during his first cross country season, highlighted by 23:50 for 8K at Pre-nationals in Louisville in 2012. He followed that up with solid performances on the track the next spring, but an IT band injury hobbled him during the 2014 indoor season.

“It kind of shot my chance at sub-4:00,” Soratos says. “I could run fast on it but after a while it would really start to hurt. I just wasn’t in great shape, which is why everyone thinks I came out of nowhere this year.”

But now, armed with his Sonic the Hedgehog socks—purchased on a whim earlier this year—and Sour Patch Kids candy, his preferred prerace fuel, he’s one of the favorites in the NCAA indoor mile.

Soratos, who was out of cross country eligibility, ran about 60 miles per week this fall, slightly more than his current average in the mid-50s.

“Our training is pretty similar the entire year,” Weese says. “It’s a little more specific to the race as the end of the season nears, but we don’t have giant transitions. Rather than trying to time things out, we just get to a high level of fitness and add some more race specific workouts. Then we go race.”

Knowing when to relax and when to push is key in MSU’s system.

“Recovery days are for one thing, and that’s to recover,” Soratos says. “When it’s time to go hard, let’s get after it.”

The team typically holds hard workouts Monday and Wednesday—a tempo run, interval session, or hybrid of the two—and races Friday.

For one recent hybrid workout, Soratos started with a 4-mile tempo in 20:00. After a rest period, he launched into 200m, 200m, 800m at mile pace followed by 300m at 800 race pace, with 1:30 to 2:00 rest after the 200s and about 5 minutes rest after the 800.

The workout focused on hitting splits rather than cutting down rest. Soratos tries to approach workouts thinking about where he wants his times to be, not where he’s at now.

“If you never actually touch that speed in a workout, how are you going to do it in a race?” he says.

He plans on running professionally next year, but will be back on campus to finish his degree and hopes to work as an assistant coach.

After indoors the focus will shift to the outdoor oval, and even bigger races than the NCAA championships. Soratos and Weese targeted the USATF outdoor championships on June 25-28 even before his breakout season began.

“This fall I heard someone talking about Cristian going to some concert at the end of June,” Weese says, “and I was like ‘Um, you’re probably not going to be able to make that.’”